Abstract:
The objective of this survey research was to study the level of loyalty of the clients at Thonburi Hospital, describe factors affecting loyalty and analyze the association between population characteristics and factors influencing loyalty against the level of loyalty. The population sample were 400 out-patient clients who had come to seek service for not less than 2 times during the period 21 January 18 February 2013, chosen by using the Quota Systematic Sampling technic. The research tool was a questionnaire with a 0.9221validity value. The data was analyzed with descriptive statistics, Chi-Square test and Pearsons Product Correlation Coefficient at =0.05. The study found that the majority of the studied samples were female aged 31-40 years of age, married, bachelor degree level education, in private business, with a monthly income of 15,000 50,000 baht, who seek service 4-6 times /year and with a doctors appointment. The overall loyalty of the clients was at a high level in brand loyalty, trust, satisfaction and marketing promotion. The female clients would pass on the good quality of service to others (p=0.08), they would also advise and motivate their friends and associates to use the services of the hospital (0.038).The study found no association between customer loyalty with age, marital status, education status, occupation, number of service sought, reason for seeking service, monthly income of the family, client or their relatives. But the study found the association between clients loyalty with brand equity (r=0.581) brand awareness (r=-0.397)perceived quality (r=0.585), brand association (r=0.777), trust(r=0.711) satisfaction(r=0.729) and marketing promotion (r=0.725).The research recommended that the information gained from the research should be used as an input for formulating policy and strategy to increase satisfaction, trust, brand equity and marketing promotion in order to increase the clients loyalty both among the existing clients and when attracting new customers so that the clients base can be expanded and increase the competitive potentiality against other hospitals with efficiency.